The Julia Principle sets new lows

It is hard to imagine a time when political leadership in this country has been so uniformly woeful. One need look no further than Canberra to witness politics at its most depressing ebb, although our moribund state parliaments hardly offer relief. And yet there is no clarion call of protest against the entrenched mediocrity of our political institutions.

Instead, we endure with uncomplaining resignation. Perhaps this tells us something about the state of leadership generally, not just in politics, but in business as well. We don’t trust our political leaders and we no longer believe our corporate leaders. Australians have stopped listening. It’s a bleak picture, but it reflects the malaise that is so palpable across the community. A prime minister telling taxpayers not to fear a price on carbon has the same credibility as a chief executive assuring harried employees that there will be no further job cuts.

It’s the era of hollow leadership, and its patron saint is
Julia Gillard
.

It wasn’t always so. Gillard’s appointment as Australia’s first female prime minister one year ago held not only promise for those who would aspire to the highest political office in the land, it also gave a beleaguered nation hope that with the political demise of her reviled predecessor, Australia could at last restore dignity to the office of prime minister. Those hopes were quickly dashed. No wonder Australians are beyond caring. Who can forget the speed with which Gillard squandered her political capital?

If nothing else, Gillard may well have made her contribution to the management lexicon. That well known business maxim, the Peter Principle, will surely be rechristened the Julia Principle.

So much was expected of Gillard when she wrested the top job from
Kevin Rudd
. As deputy prime minister, Gillard was everything Rudd was not: plain-speaking, engaging, thoughtful and collegiate. Most importantly, she stood for something. All hallmarks of successful leadership in any context.

There were doubts in the early days of her prime ministership: who can forget the ham-fisted East Timor solution? But she was new in the job and allowances were made. Then came the “Moving Forward" election campaign and Gillard’s bizarre admission that she had been someone else. She promised the return of the “real Julia", but nothing changed. The most vapid election campaign in history droned on and the realisation dawned that we had been seeing the real Julia all along.

Real Julia, as head of a ramshackle minority government, has turned out to be a real dud. Measured against her predecessor, she is just as unpopular, just as inept, just as prone to policy on the run and just as unconvincing on the same three issues – asylum seekers, the mining tax and climate change.

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The heartbreak of Gillard’s failure would not be so crushing if there were a viable alternative government in the wings, but there are just as many doubts hanging over Tony “Dr No" Abbott and his lightweight front bench. The opposition offers neither policy certainty nor a cohesive narrative for Australia. Like Gillard, Abbott has one interest only: power. But, as Gillard’s experience demonstrates, power without a plan is simply treading water.

Mendacity, hypocrisy and cynicism have become endemic features of modern professional politics. Former federal finance minister Lindsay Tanner is one of the few to cry “Enough!" His new book, Sideshow (Scribe), laments the scourge of what he describes as the dumbing down of democracy.

We need more from the voice of business. Bad government spells bad policy for business.

The risk to business and the economy of poor political leadership is real enough, but the degraded state of Australian politics gives rise to a deeper threat that strikes at the heart of society, and that is the poor example set by Canberra’s corrosive political culture.

Canberra is hardly the role model it should be, or could be, whether for school kids, young adults entering the workforce or serving and future business leaders.

Under the Canberra model, integrity, values and ethics have been reduced to optional features of leadership. Who needs Enron when we have Canberra as our guiding light?